Junior .NET Software Engineer

Explore Learning is a leading educational organisation that is committed to making learning enjoyable and effective for children. With our network of learning centres across the country and our online tutor offering, we help thousands of children develop their skills and reach their full potential.

The Role

We're looking for a junior backend engineer to design, build, and operate cloud-native services on Azure. You'll own systems end-to-end — from C# code through to the Azure infrastructure they run on — and work alongside AI coding agents as part of how we ship.

What you'll do:

• Build and maintain backend services in C# / .NET (8+)
• Design and evolve data models in Azure SQL Server, including performance tuning and migrations
• Implement event-driven and asynchronous workflows using Azure Service Bus (queues, topics, sessions, dead-lettering)
• Work with Azure Storage Accounts (Blob, Queue, Table) for durable storage and integration patterns
• Use AI coding agents (e.g. Claude Code, Copilot) as part of your daily workflow — scoping tasks, reviewing agent output, and shipping production code with them in the loop
• Write clean, testable code with solid unit and integration test coverage
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, observability, and production support

Must-haves:

• Strong C# / .NET backend experience (3+ years)
• Hands-on production experience with Azure SQL Server — schema design, T-SQL, indexing, query plans
• Hands-on production experience with Azure Service Bus — messaging patterns, idempotency, retries, poison messages
• Hands-on production experience with Azure Storage Accounts — Blob and Queue at minimum
• Practical exposure to agentic software development — using LLM-based coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or similar) to plan, generate, and review code; understanding their strengths, failure modes, and where human judgment is non-negotiable
• Comfortable with async/await, dependency injection, and modern .NET patterns
• Familiarity with REST API design, authentication (OAuth2 / JWT), and structured logging

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience writing prompts, agent instructions, or AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md files for repo-level agent guidance
• Building or integrating with MCP servers, tool-using agents, or LLM APIs
• AKS / containerised workloads
• Azure Functions, Durable Functions, or Container Apps
• Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, Terraform)
• Entra ID / Entra External ID
• Datadog or similar observability tooling
• Azure certifications (AZ-204, AZ-400, AZ-104)

You'll thrive here if you care about reliability and operability, not just shipping. Like owning a service rather than throwing it over a wall. Push back when the design isn't right — whether it came from a human or an agent.

Logistics

Location: Remote (UK based)
Job Type: Full time across Monday-Friday
Reports to: Head of Engineering
Start date: ASAP

Please note: Proof of eligibility to work in the UK will be required. Unfortunately we are not able to offer any form of sponsorship.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all staff to share this commitment. Safeguarding is paramount. Our safer recruitment processes are rigorous and designed to deter, identify and reject anyone who may pose a risk to children. Any offer is strictly conditional upon satisfactory references (taken directly from referees) and an Enhanced DBS check. You must provide a full employment history with all gaps clearly explained and evidenced where required. Any omission, inconsistency or misleading information may result in your application being rejected, an offer withdrawn, or dismissal. This role is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (and relevant Exceptions Orders). Relevant disclosures will be required in line with DBS and safer recruitment requirements.